The story of the Alpha coal mine

The Alpha coal mega-mine — a joint venture between Gina Rinehart's Hancock Coal and Indian giant GVK — is a massive greenfield development planned for Queensland's remote Galilee Basin.

Right now, community group Coast and Country Queensland and Galilee locals are fighting it in court.

Here’s why:

The CO2 generated by the coal from this one mine will be more than the emissions of whole countries, like Denmark and Sweden.

The mine will permanently remove 176 billion litres of groundwater.

After carving out a 24km-long open-cut pit, destroying tens of thousands of hectares of native vegetation and impacting threatened species, Alpha will ship 30 million tonnes of coal through the Great Barrier Reef every year.